Crunchyroll held its annual Global Shinkai Day last weekend, featuring the works of anime creator Makoto Shinkai (Voices of a Distant Star, 5 Centimeters per Second, The Place Promised in Our Early Days). One of Shinkai’s films they streamed was Children Who Chase Lost Voices (Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo).
Children Who Chase Lost Voices is different from all the other Shinkai movies I’ve seen. Shinkai tends to tell his stories at a very slow pace, focusing on characters who are solitary and isolated from society.
Young Asuna has a difficult life in some aspects. Her father is deceased and her mother is a nurse who works the night shift, leaving Asuna to cook her own dinner, clean the house and do her homework alone every evening.
At school, her teacher goes on maternity leave and the new substitute teacher Mr. Morisaki is a widower who still mourns his wife ten years after her death.
Asuna’s independent nature leads her to spend a lot of time after school alone in the mountains. She’s stashed some personal items in a cave near a cliff, and listens to a homemade crystal radio while gazing out over the valley.
One day, she meets a gentle mysterious boy named Shun.
Shun has an otherworldly air to him and indeed he is from another world—a world that circumstances lead Asuna and another person to in due course.
It’s hard to tell more of the story without telling too much. I can say that some of the people who turn out to be main characters are ones you didn’t expect.
It’s a beautiful story and well told, but the most remarkable thing as I alluded to above is the pacing. Shinkai’s distinctive storytelling style isn’t for everyone: he is obsessed with time and how it passes, and most of his movies proceed at the speed of a glacier, to the point where it feels like time is literally standing still.
By contrast, the story of Children Who Chase Lost Voices unfolds at a normal pace. It’s Shinkai’s most mainstream and commercial film to date. If you haven’t warmed to Shinkai’s works before this, consider giving him another chance and seeing Children Who Chase Lost Voices. You won’t be disappointed.
